After nearly 20 years, a company that has spent more than $60 million in a bid to build the Gregory Canyon landfill off state Route 76 could be just months from obtaining all the needed permits.

Whether the landfill, which would operate for 30 years and store 1 million tons of trash annually, will ever be developed is debatable.

Opponents have fought for years to delay the permitting decisions, and there is little doubt that even if the permits are granted, foes won’t be giving up anytime soon.

There are always the courts and always appeals.

“We’re moving on the basis that we have a solid position with regard to the impacts of this project,” said Jim Simmons, project manager for Gregory Canyon Ltd. “We believe we can mitigate for every single one of them — physically, biologically, culturally. And at the end of the day, we will have a permit that will be upheld.”

The private developer and the opponents are dug in deep for a fight. The opposition is well funded with gaming revenues generated by the casino run by the Pala Band of Mission Indians, which is just a couple of miles from the proposed landfill site.

Simmons said that in late 2009 the tribe made an offer to Gregory Canyon Ltd. to purchase the landfill property. He wouldn’t say what was offered, but the offer was rejected.

Twice voters have been asked whether a landfill should be built south of state Route 76 about two miles west of the town of Pala, and twice — in 1994 and 2004 — they have overwhelmingly said yes.

Opposition to the dump comes from environmental groups, the Pala band and leaders of several North County cities worried that pollution from the dump might contaminate the San Luis Rey River.

Everett DeLano, an attorney who has been fighting the plans for more than a decade on behalf of environmental groups, said he doesn’t believe the dump will ever be built.

Even if all permits are approved, he said, lawsuits and appeals will follow quickly. Every day that passes without a bulldozer on the property is a victory, he said.

“The reason it’s taken this long is because it’s a bad idea in the first place,” DeLano said. “Eventually the people who have spent all this money are going to say, ‘We can’t make this work.’ I don’t see how it makes economic sense.”

Robert Smith, chairman of the Pala band, has been one of the strongest opposition voices. The landfill would be built on land adjacent to the reservation on the other side of a mountain the tribe considers sacred. He said the cultural significance of the area is vast, but it is the possible contamination of the river, which bisects the property, that is the main reason to oppose the project.

“It’s not a NIMBY thing. It’s a whole County of San Diego thing,” Smith said.

The landfill would be built on 308 acres within a 1,770-acre parcel of land approximately three miles east of Interstate 15 and two miles southwest of the community of Pala. The remaining acreage would remain as open space.